McBrain

Q: iPhone contacts back-up?

Hello,

I have an iPhone 4 with OS 7.1.2 and wish to restore factory settings. The only thing I need to back-up are my contacts. I have never used iCloud. Can I temporarily back-up my contacts on iCloud and then download them again? If so, please can anyone advise me how?

Alternatively, I saw good reviews for an app named “My Contacts Backup” available from the Apple app store. I downloaded it but I am hesitant to use it. The first screen is simply to “back up contacts now”, but how secure is this app? To where are these contacts being backed up? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

iPhone 4, iOS 7.1.2

Posted on Sep 8, 2016 11:45 AM

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Q: iPhone contacts back-up?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by roaminggnome,

    roaminggnome roaminggnome Sep 8, 2016 11:48 AM in response to McBrain
    Level 10 (96,843 points)
    Sep 8, 2016 11:48 AM in response to McBrain

    Where do you store your contacts?

     

    Your computer?

     

    Another cloud service?

     

    Nothing should only be on your iPhone.

     

    Get help using iCloud Contacts, Calendars, or Reminders - Apple ...

  • by javaliga,

    javaliga javaliga Sep 8, 2016 12:00 PM in response to McBrain
    Level 4 (3,299 points)
    iCloud
    Sep 8, 2016 12:00 PM in response to McBrain

    See the Apple recommended answer in this thread:

     

    How to backup contacts only in iCloud?

     

    I have no experience with “My Contacts Backup” and therefore have no comment on it.

  • by SergZak,Solvedanswer

    SergZak SergZak Sep 8, 2016 12:12 PM in response to McBrain
    Level 5 (7,304 points)
    iPad
    Sep 8, 2016 12:12 PM in response to McBrain

    The "My Contacts Backup" app combines and saves your contacts into a vCard or CSV (Excel) file. The file is then saved locally within in the app itself or you can choose to email the file to yourself for safe keeping (where you can archive it where it's convenient for you). To restore your contacts, you simply click on the file attachment in the email you sent to yourself and follow the prompts. I've been using the app for many years and can vouch for it's integrity.

  • by Jolieteddie,

    Jolieteddie Jolieteddie Sep 8, 2016 12:15 PM in response to McBrain
    Level 2 (409 points)
    Sep 8, 2016 12:15 PM in response to McBrain

    For a couple of years I've been backing up my contacts with an app that stores the backup to my Dropbox account, and a second app that backs up as an Excel document in the data section for the app on iTunes.  Both have worked flawlessly and the backups are on Dropbox and iTunes respectively. Search App Store to find these.

  • by Rysz,

    Rysz Rysz Sep 8, 2016 12:18 PM in response to McBrain
    Level 7 (20,242 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 8, 2016 12:18 PM in response to McBrain

    The proper method is to regularly sync your contacts, calendars, etc, with the equivalent apps on your computer AND to regularity or automatically import your files, photos, etc to your computer AND to regularly backup to iCloud and/or iTunes on your computer. End of lecture...

     

    If you have not been doing this in the past, do it now.

     

    If you're performing the factory reset to sell or give away the phone, follow these steps:

    What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201351

  • by McBrain,

    McBrain McBrain Sep 8, 2016 12:47 PM in response to roaminggnome
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2016 12:47 PM in response to roaminggnome

    Hi Roaminggnome, thanks for your reply. I have 300 contacts on my computer and only about 50 of these are on my phone. I don't want the other 250 on my phone. So I keep them separate. I don't use any cloud service except for Dropbox just to share files, and not for storage or back-up. Call me old fashioned, but I don't want to store anything on the cloud permanently.

  • by McBrain,

    McBrain McBrain Sep 8, 2016 12:48 PM in response to javaliga
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2016 12:48 PM in response to javaliga

    Thanks for the link Javaliga. I will look into that.

  • by McBrain,

    McBrain McBrain Sep 8, 2016 12:54 PM in response to SergZak
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2016 12:54 PM in response to SergZak

    Thanks SergZak. That's really helpful.

     

     

    As an aside..... Hello Apple, I'm trying to reply individually to each of the people who replied to my post. I've posted 2 replies and now I have to wait to post this one having been notified: "Post limit reached. Please try again in a few moments". Surely this website can determine between a user replying to responses to the user's own post, and someone trying to spam the site?  

  • by McBrain,

    McBrain McBrain Sep 8, 2016 1:01 PM in response to Jolieteddie
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2016 1:01 PM in response to Jolieteddie

    Thanks Jolieteddie!

  • by McBrain,

    McBrain McBrain Sep 8, 2016 1:12 PM in response to Rysz
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2016 1:12 PM in response to Rysz

    Thanks Rysz. Proper methods aren't the same for everyone. To cut a long story short, I have confidential research data on my computer, and I use a Chinese social media app known to be monitored by the Chinese government (and even some Chinese friends don't trust the software itself). I simply keep my phone and my computer separate. I email photos from my phone to my computer. I still use an iPod for music. I don't want to sync the contacts on my phone and those on my computer anyway. I try to keep my phone use to a minimum. Better for my eyes and my posture. So, I have no reason to sync and several good reasons not to.

     

    Thanks for the link. That will be useful.

  • by OmarBanasr,

    OmarBanasr OmarBanasr Sep 8, 2016 3:04 PM in response to McBrain
    Level 1 (42 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 8, 2016 3:04 PM in response to McBrain

    the app simply saves the contact and email them to an email of your choice

    iCloud buts them in the cloud for you so you can access them throw your account

    and iTunes backup will store them in iTunes on laptop and can do a restore from back up when your done

  • by McBrain,

    McBrain McBrain Sep 11, 2016 2:27 PM in response to SergZak
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 11, 2016 2:27 PM in response to SergZak

    Thanks SergZak.

     

    I am trying to click on "This solved my question" (which is the weirdest grammar ever), but for some reason the Apple site is not allowing me to do that. Well, I click on it but nothing happens.

     

    The "My Contacts Backup" app worked out great. Thank you! Strangely I emailed it to my gmail and hotmail addresses. At first I used the gmail link and it didn't work properly. All contacts were 'uneditable'. Tried again and the same problem. Then used the Hotmail link and it worked fine.

     

    However, at first I tried iCloud, having tried to sync only my phone's contacts to iCloud. It did not work. It just downloaded 3 contacts that were on my computer.  This is where it gets ugly. I bought a new MacBook 2 months ago and was sure I had switched off iCloud when I set it up. No intention to use iCloud. But for some reason it was still running and 3 new contacts on my MacBook downloaded to my phone. But the iPhone > iCloud upload had not done anything. Oh well.  "My Contacts Backup" worked out fine. Now I have totally signed out of iCloud on my computer.

     

    BUT.... I just opened my calendar on my MacBook and it has disappeared. Everything has gone. I can only assume it disappeared with the iCloud Contacts experiment on Friday night. Argh! Syncing things is all very well if you want to. But there is an assumption that everyone wants to, and it seems too easy to make a mistake if you don't want to. Or if you want to be selective. Doesn't seem like intelligent technology if it assumes I want to overwrite a calendar that goes back 7 years with an empty calendar.

     

    I've just been looking on my Time Machine back-up from Friday afternoon... Please can anyone tell me where I find the Calendar files so I can restore them?

     

    Thank you!!